


Nitro-Meo and Juliet

by JCMorrigan



Category: Crash Bandicoot (Video Games)
Genre: A villain I don't like dies in this sorry not sorry, Also the one big thing that makes this not canon compliant, And it doesn't even work, Based on past/present/future, Beastrage if you're reading this THIS is what the Postmodern Jukebox was for, But that's what first fics of a character are for, But then there's time travel stuff, Changing Tenses, Corruption, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friendly competition, Friends to Lovers, He has ten minutes of screentime and five lines of dialogue and I LOVE HE, I got used to IAT Tawna before CTR Tawna, I'm only about 70 percent confident I got Pinstripe's dialogue right, Is that Komodo Moe FUCKING DIES, Love does not redeem it CORRUPTS, Pinstripe is sick of Cortex, Polar has a cameo because he's a cutie pie, Referenced as many CB platforming worlds as I could GET, So it takes place during 3 and 4 as well, So that's the voice I reference, Sooooort of canon compliant?, Takes place during CB2, Tawna has always been sick of Cortex, That's the one who likes weapons anyway and gave me evil Tawna headcanons, The entire reason I love this ship is because it lets me imagine evil crime Tawna, They both just wanna kill him, This fic is them attempting to kill him, i love him so much, implied PTSD, montage style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28085430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCMorrigan/pseuds/JCMorrigan
Summary: Pinstripe Potoroo and Tawna Bandicoot have a very unusual friendship. One largely built on their hatred for Dr. Neo Cortex, who is currently working to build some kind of doomsday device in the atmosphere above. And so the adventure begins.***Once again, I write the ship content I wish to see in the world. I see a chance to write a corruption arc (as opposed to a redemption arc) and I jump.This fic has zero to do with actual Romeo and Juliet. That's just for the pun.
Relationships: Pinstripe Potoroo/Tawna (Crash Bandicoot)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Nitro-Meo and Juliet

**Author's Note:**

> It annoys the heck out of me that Tawna's voice is drastically different between IAT and CTR. I'm aware they're from two different dimensions, but IAT!Tawna is the one who gave me all the headcanons that she'd actually make a fantastic villain if she got the chance to cut loose, so that's the voice I had in mind when I wrote her.
> 
> Anyway, this fic was almost called "Dam(ned)sel If You Don(t)" and "Partners in Time." One was rejected for being too complex of a pun and the other turns out to be the name of a Mario game.

His fingers idly tap at the polished hardwood of the desk. Not close enough to touch the phone. He’s going for the phone, eventually, but first he has to decide who it is he’s calling.

His trusted subordinates should be the natural top ranking. He should be rounding up the troops, arming them to the teeth, dispatching them in a flood. The standard way to get revenge.

But he can’t help remembering a time that someone called him. A while ago.

(“Dunno, but she said you’d be real mad if I didn’t patch you through,” his receptionist, one Eddy Emu, said.

“Wha – I got no idea who ya mean. Put ‘er on!”

A clicking as the lines shifted, then she answered: “Pinstripe? Hi, so you’re not gonna believe who this is, but…”)

There’s only one person in all this world who wants the scientist and his cronies obliterated quite painfully from existence as much as he does. The strangest friend he’s ever had.

(“It just…feels so weird. Hollow, maybe? Like…you know you’re special now, but what does that even mean? And was it worth all THAT?”

“…Yeah, hate to say it, but I getcha. I getcha EXACTLY. That moment when you’re all-a-sudden smart enough to realize you don’t belong in a cage no more, but still, youse in the cage.”)

He’s dialing. He won’t be stopped. Whether or not she’s the right person for this. The phone rings halfway around the world.

(“This is getting depressing. Tell me about what you’re doing up there in the city.”

“You don’t wanna hear about that, toots. That story’s fulla murder an’ mayhem. Ain’t for the faint of heart.”

“I’m not faint of heart. I wanna hear about it. All the gory details. I mean it.”

“If y’insist.”)

She picks up. “Hello?”

“Ay, yo, Tawna,” he greets. “You ain’t never gonna believe who this is.”

A silence. Then: “Pinstripe?”

“On the nose.”

“Ho…ly…cow! How ARE you? No, wait. Why are you calling? That’s the more important question here, because YOU don’t dial your weirdest friend up at midnight just because of an emotional crisis.”

Pinstripe smiles. She gets him. “Big trouble, toots. You look up in the sky lately?”

“Nooooo…?”

“You by a window?”

“Uh-huhhhh…” She sounds rightly suspicious.

“Take a look-see. Straight up.”

There’s a shifting. “Um. I see the stars, and – “ The silence tells him she’s spotted it. “What. Is. THAT.”

“Word on the street is…Cortex Vortex 2.0.”

Something breaks on the other end. She’s thrown some sort of dish or something. “You BETTER be kidding.”

“No joke. That rat’s plannin’ somethin’. Dunno what, but it ain’t gonna be good for us down here. But listen. I ain’t just gonna let this slide without blowin’ the man all the way to Jupiter. Now, last I remember, you wanted a piece of that action, hypothetically speakin’. Whaddaya say? The two original lab rats, teamin’ up to blast him to smithereens?”

“Are you…inviting me on a hit, basically?”

“More or less. Though I get it if that ain’t your thing. Got a lady’s constitution, after all.”

“Oh, I’ll BE there,” Tawna growls. Then pauses. “Where’s…there? Where are we meeting?”  
“He’s parked over the isles. You stay put an’ I’ll come to you. From there, we hike up to the ol’ Cortex Castle. Now don’t you go runnin’ ahead an’ finishin’ the job without me. I want in on the fun, see.”

“Right. I’ll be right here waiting. Then we FINISH this.”

“You got it, toots. See ya real soon.”

He disconnects. He knows she’s slamming the phone down at the exact same time, cursing out Cortex under her breath.

He dials another number. A deep voice on the other end: “Boss?”

“Book me the next flight to Wumpa toot-suite,” Pinstripe says to Eddy. “I gots personal business there.”

* * *

Tawna is walking with Pinstripe up the dark mountain, and it’s kind of a wonder she trusts him at all, considering. That they consider each other friends is all the more a miracle.

But as they pass his old office, the one riddled with bullet holes, she remarks, “Now there’s a blast from the past.”

(She used to escape all the time. Cortex’s voice blasted into the office: “PINSTRIPE! Do something about this!” So he’d tied her up in that very office and waited for Cortex to come pick her up. But really, at first, he’d just wanted to shoot her with the pistol in his top drawer, back when he thought she was just some blonde bimbo.)

“Yeah,” Pinstripe remarks with a sigh. “Weird how time flies, ain’t it?”  
(“You’re lucky,” Tawna said with a pout. “At least you don’t let a conscience hold you back. I wish I was more like that. But I can’t stop thinking about what people want from me, what HE wants from me…”

“What, youse sayin’ you wanna be the bad guy?”

“Maybe. Yes. Definitely yes.”

“Eh, you’re not the type.”)

“I thought for sure you’d take your giant stupid picture with you when you left,” Tawna laughs, approaching the giant oil portrait of Pinstripe and poking it with a finger.

“Eh.” Pinstripe waves it off. “I got more commissioned for the city office. They’s even bigger.”

(“You ever feel like…you’re just spending your whole life waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do?” Tawna asked. “To save you? To make everything perfect? But you really just…wanna be your own person and take control of your own life?”

He looked to the other portrait in the room. The one of Cortex. His creator, his benefactor, the man he’d sworn to protect in exchange for having become what he was.

“I ain’t got no idea what you’s talking about.”)

The Cortex painting is full of bullet holes now. Tawna laughs at this. “Good riddance.”

“Yeah. Too bad that ain’t the real one, right?”  
“I mean, it will be in a few minutes.”

“Yeah!”

They continue the hike, past the corridor where Tawna had woven that tapestry of herself in captivity –

(“I gots paperwork to do, so you sit there an’ shut up.”

“…That’s not paperwork. You’re coloring.”

“No I ain’t!”

“Your pencil wouldn’t sound like that if you were writing! What are you drawing, anyway?”

“You wanna know so bad? Here!”

“Yourself shooting Crash in the head fifty million times. Classy.”)

\- and hung it on the wall of her prison, because she had to pass the time somehow.

“Ay, uh, Tawna…” All these old memories dredged up, of their past meeting, of how they’d decided each other wasn’t so bad after all, have got him thinking. “No hard feelin’s I tried ta shoot your man, right? An’ also that I still kinda wanna shoot ‘im?”

“Eh. Water under the bridge.” She shrugs. “I will still have to try and stop you from doing that, of course. Though…” She sighs. A melancholy sound.

“Eh? Somethin’ up?”

“Not that I want him dead or anything, but let’s just say Crash isn’t my favorite person right now.” She bites her lip. “Also, he’s not my man anymore.”

“What, you two fall out?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He relents. “Fair.”

They reach the summit, where several arches stand in wait, a couple of them illuminated. “See? I told ya!” Pinstripe says triumphantly as he throws his fist in the air. “Just like I said! The warps is still up an’ runnin’!”

“Wow, so you got one thing right,” Tawna teases. “Good for you. Soooooo…how are we going to use this ‘Warp Room’ to bring him down anyway?”

“He gots more Warp Rooms, see? They let ‘im travel all over the world without havin’ to pay travel expenses. This one’s linked to more, an’ those is all linked back to wherever he’s hidin’, which means that space station.” He puffs his chest. “I’d know, bein’ his bodyguard an’ all.”

“Right,” Tawna says. “So how does this translate into destroying Cortex?”

“Well, ya see, ‘fore the operation went belly-up, we was workin’ on somethin’ new. Nitro Crates for mass production. Twenty hundred times more dangerous than TNT.”

“…Twenty hundred?”

“You knows what I mean! The biggest kaboom to come from Cortex Factories yet – all thanks to the brilliant CEO, Don Pinstripelli Potorotti! Also known as ME. Anyhows, it was a pretty big deal, weapons-wise. Even one crate of it could blow up a ten-foot radius. So imagine what a HUNDRED of ‘em could do to that Cortex Vortex!”

“Or twenty hundred,” Tawna says with a grin.

Pinstripe sighs. “You ain’t never gonna let that one go.”

“Nnnnnope.”

“But the point is, Cortex had ‘em ordered shipped all over the world! All we’s gotta do is use these here Warp Rooms to take a little world tour an’ pick up all the Nitro Crates he left behind! They’s technically my property, anyway.”

“And then…” Tawna shrugged. “Place them on his space station?”

“You gots it!”

“And…how do we blow them up without US blowing up?”

“We – “ Pinstripe begins. Then he falters. “I’m, uh, still workin’ that part out. This’d be so much easier if we’d got some giant laser to fire from down here or somethin’.”

“Wait.” Tawna’s eyes light up. “You have your cell?”  
Pinstripe takes a flip phone out from his pocket. Where it’s usually snuggled against the barrel of the machine gun he never, ever leaves home without. “Right here! Who you wanna call?”

“You still have Nitrus Brio’s number?”

“Brio?” Pinstripe strikes a quizzical expression. “Why Brio?”

“Because Cortex wasn’t very fair on him either,” Tawna says, rocking playfully back and forth on the soles of her feet, “and he always liked to work on those big lasers…”

Pinstripe gets it. In a second, he’s dialing Brio; “Ay, Nitrus! It’s Pinstripe. Y’know, from the old days! Say, y’know how Cortex done did us both real dirty…?”

(By the end of the hostage situation, when Cortex came to pick up Tawna and drag her back to the lab and test chambers, Pinstripe’s mind had gone all the way full circle to the pistol in the top drawer again. But not to shoot Tawna with. To give to her, to say “Next time ya wanna run, use this.”

But back then, he liked the taste of Cortex’s boots too much to ever do anything like that.)

Brio agrees in a stammer; he has a laser that can harness the power of gems to direct the planet’s energy at the new Cortex Vortex. “B-b-b-but, uh, h-how will the ship detonate – “

“Youse just leave that part to us,” Pinstripe says. Then his eyes widen; “I mean to me! Leave that part to me. Get it?”

“Yes, I th-think so.”

“Good. Now hold up your end of the bargain, or you’ll be the one who gets the business end of the plan instead.” He hangs up.

“Way to burn that bridge,” Tawna huffs.

“All I did was motivate him!” Pinstripe gives a dramatic shrug of feigned innocence. “Now let’s get goin’!”

It’s a simple mission. Eradicate the one who wronged them all. Who gave them the nightmares of dank cages, of gauntlets of exploding crates. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that, not yet.

* * *

“Whoa.” Tawna gapes at the central Warp Room and its many, many gates. “How…how long did you know about this?”

Pinstripe is also gobsmacked, but then he realizes he’s supposed to be used to this. “Eh, since inception. It’s old hat.”

“Did you…ever actually use this room before, or did you just hear about it?”

“Tawnaaaaaa!” Pinstripe puts up both hands. “Whaddaya take me for?”

“A liar who likes to boost his own ego.”

“I mean, sure, but I’m a little more than that!”

Tawna looks around at the swirling gates. “So. Where to?”

“Anywheres.” Pinstripe picks up the gun, at long last. It feels like an extension of his own arm at this point. “In fact, let’s make it ladies’ choice.”

“That one!” Tawna points at random.

They hurry off to begin collecting their crates. And literally two seconds later, Crash Bandicoot comes darting out of the entrance across the Warp Room in time to receive a communiqué from Brio.

The two parties never will learn that they were in the same place at roughly the same time, and there will be a few more of these misses for the books.

* * *

The first place Pinstripe and Tawna go hunting is the sewers. They’re clogged with Cortex flunkies, as well as some people who might’ve just been janitors but were more than willing to do harm to a couple of errant marsupials.

“Okay, we need to think this through,” Tawna muses. “We’ll need good timing to get past these guys. If they’re anything like the ones from Cortex Castle – “

“Baby,” Pinstripe interrupts. His gun cartridge clicks into place. “No need to overcomplicate things.”

A hailstorm of metal rings throughout the pipes, bullets ricocheting off every surface. What doesn’t get shot directly into an obstacle eventually reaches there by bouncing off other things. Pinstripe looks like he’s having the time of his life, just standing in one place and firing off round after round until there are only two people left alive in the whole sewer, and that’s him and Tawna.

When it’s down to the duo, he finally lowers the gun, but not before blowing the rim of it off. A signature touch. He looks over to Tawna, who is agape.

“What?” he asks. “You knew what you were signin’ up for.”

She shakes her head. After all, it’s not as if she ever knew or cared about any of these people. “It’s just that…I mean, if you wanna take all the fun and skill out of it, sure, that works.”

“Don’t knock what works,” Pinstripe says as he strides into the sewers. Shakes a leg once he realizes the sort of goop that’s getting on his velour trousers.

Tawna shrugs and follows, because she can’t argue with that.

* * *

Every time they go fishing for Nitro Crates, they bring back more for the stash they’re building in the remains of Cortex Castle. It grows by large increments.

The environments get stranger, more varied. Tawna wonders what Cortex could possibly have wanted to accomplish in some of these places. Pinstripe has learned not to ask.

A particular jungle is dark, requiring them to enlist the help of a nearby lightning bug to illuminate their path. They scan for the green crates that seem to move of their own accord in an intimidating way.

“You still get dreams about it?” Tawna asks.

“Yeah,” Pinstripe replies, and he doesn’t even have to request a clarification as to what she means. “Those were the dark days.”

“Do you ever wish you just…hadn’t been taken?”

“No,” Pinstripe admits. “Wish it’d been less painful, less military-like, but look at me!” He spreads his arms wide. “I’m doin’ things no potoroo thought possible before me! Can any of them schmucks use one of these?” He pats the gun, of course. “Can any of them schmucks run a criminal empire?”

“They don’t care about money,” Tawna argued. “But maybe that’s the whole problem. We didn’t know what kind of world was out there for us, before.”

“An’ now we’ve got it all! It’s our oyster!”

“Yeah!” Tawna beams. “You know, you’re right. I wouldn’t wanna be who I was before. Still…” She hugs herself. Shivers.

And Pinstripe sees this and fights off the very intrusive thought that his arms should be around her as well. She’s a looker, all right, but if he goes down the lust road, that will ruin the great thing they have going already, this partnership in vengeance-seeking. There’ll be other girls. Actually, didn’t Cortex engineer those four other bandicoot ladies…? He files away that thought for later.

He’s supposed to comment. “Yeah, sure wasn’t a cakewalk, though.”

“At least you actually get it. You’d think…” She trails off.

Pinstripe catches the gist. “Your man. He don’t, does he?”

“No,” Tawna says. “To put it shortly. Aaaand that’s all the far we’re getting on that train.”

The lightning bug disappears, and the two of them scramble around in a panic attempting to find a second one.

* * *

There are Nitro Crates in the river. The only way to reach them is to traverse the running waters. Thankfully, there are small vehicles tethered to the dock. Jet boards. Two of them.

“Looks like it’s our lucky day.” Tawna steps out onto one. “You do know how to ride one of these things, right?”

“Tawna, Tawna, Tawna.” Pinstripe gracefully saunters onto the other. “You think I dunno how to drive one of these puppies? Watch.”

He takes off a few feet into the river. When she follows, he literally steers circles around her, smirking.

She gets mischievous in return. “Okay, Mr. Smooth Driver. What do you say we race for it?”

“We huh?”

“We race down the river and pick up as much Nitro as we can carry. First one to the end wins.”

Pinstripe mulls this over. “Wins what?”

“You have anything to bet?”

He clutches the gun protectively, then admits, “About five hundred in my pocket.”

“Five hundred it is, then.”

“But we go on my count!”

“Fair.”

They line up as evenly as they can. “On your marks,” Pinstripe says smugly. “Get set – “

He takes off, blasting his gun into the air to mark his departure.

“NO FAIR!” Tawna speeds after him.

They’re neck-and-neck. Then he pulls ahead, firing her a coy wink. Then she does, blowing a raspberry at him. They almost forget they’re supposed to be collecting Nitro Crates.

Pinstripe reaches the other dock first, sitting on it and lazily kicking his legs. “About time,” he teases when Tawna arrives.

“You cheated,” she says sourly.

“What’d you even expect?”

“Yeah, that’s on me. Keep your hundred.”

“But also, you’s gotta call me jet board champion.”

“No dice!” Tawna turns up her nose as she walks briskly down the dock.

Pinstripe can live with that, largely because their Nitro stockpile will feed well off this venture.

* * *

There are others, here in the Warp Rooms. Others who still follow Cortex’s orders without question. They’ve already been bested once, but Pinstripe and Tawna still don’t know Crash is here and they never will. So they have no idea the Komodo Brothers have already warmed up against another foe.

Moe winds up and spins Joe, who tornadoes around the room, attempting to slice and dice Pinstripe and Tawna to ribbons. Tawna is able to evade, but not do much else. Pinstripe attempts to blow Joe away with the gun, but the reptile spins too fast for him. So then he attempts to blow Moe away with the gun, but Moe is somehow able to block all of Pinstripe’s bullets with his fancy sword, which feels like shenanigans.

After a few minutes of being stuck in what is basically a blender, trying desperately not to become paste at Joe’s hands, Tawna figures it out and yells, “WAIT!”

She’s standing still, so Joe stops spinning and begins to advance upon her, running his fingertip along the edge of his sword. How does he not cut himself that way?

“I said WAIT!” Tawna urges. “Are you serious? Do you even see what’s going on here? Your brother’s just throwing you around like a toy and dizzying you up so he doesn’t have to pull his own weight!”

Joe stops in his tracks. “Isssss…thisssss true?”

“Don’t lissssten to her!” Moe hisses from behind him.

“Is this how it always goes?” Tawna asks. “He throws you around and you get no say?”

“It…it issssss,” Joe realizes.

“That’s not fair!” Tawna insists. “You can’t just let someone else dictate your whole life! My friend here and I learned that the hard way!”

“You…are correct,” Joe says. “I am ssssssick of being ussssed as a tool! But what can I do?”

Pinstripe takes over here. He looks at Joe and simply makes a motion universally recognized: drawing his finger across his neck, making a “ccckkhhhh” noise.

Joe lights up. Tawna smirks proudly. Then Joe turns to Moe, sword at the ready.

“Brother!” Moe panics. “What are you doing? Please reconssssider, brother! BROTHER – “

Slice. Splash. Only one Komodo now.

“I’m so proud of you!” Tawna gushes.

Joe kneels. “I am ever in your debt.”

“Just don’t try to hack us to pieces again,” Pinstripe says, “an’ we’ll call it even!”

* * *

Walking a muddy trail studded with beehives, Tawna reminisces. “It’s maybe not great that you’re doing the heavy lifting fighting-wise,” she sighs. “Maybe I’m doing the same thing to you that the big guy was doing to his brother.”

“Tawny, no. Don’t think like th – “

“TAWNY?”

She’s laughing now, but Pinstripe feels no shame, even though that was a bit of a slip. “Yeah,” he affirms. “We’s friends, right?”

“We are. Still not fair that I can’t even help.” She folds her arms and pouts.

Pinstripe gets it. She’s not really worried that she’s holding him back; she’s jealous because there’s not much she can do while he shoots up the room. Well, he can fix that. After all, he is carrying no fewer than five firearms concealed somewhere on his body, and he can afford to say goodbye to that one he never cared for anyway.

“Hey, Tawny. Got somethin’ for ya.”

He presents to her a grappling-hook gun. He’s not sure why he ever even had this. It’s not as fun as bullets.

She looks at it as though it’s something sacred that she was never supposed to touch. But she does touch it, picking it up reverently. “You sure?” she asks.

“Positive. You’s gotta learn to defend yourself out here, y’know.”

“Thanks, I guess. How does it work?”

“I’ll show ya. C’mere. We gotta find a stakeout point.”

They hide along the path until they see one of Cortex’s goons come stalking down from the opposite direction of where they were going. He’s got a lab coat and goggles, so it’s obvious where his alliance is. Tawna’s blood boils.

Pinstripe whispers her through it, hidden behind the shrubbery. She points and aims and then shoots and the hook bursts right through his skull and she’s forced to realize she’s just committed actual murder.

The hook reels back, and Tawna stares at the brain spatters on the path. “How about it?” Pinstripe asks. “First one always feels liberatin’, don’t it?”

She realizes what she feels isn’t horror. She lets it all out by screaming, “That was AWESOME! I’ve never felt that powerful before! Okay, who else am I allowed to kill?”

The question is so adorable that Pinstripe is sent into a fit of laughter. “Whoever did you wrong, baby. Whoever did you wrong.”

* * *

This area is all snowy and icy. Strolling along the side of the subzero ocean, Tawna recalls a joke, but it’s difficult to explain without writing it down.

“ – so when you have the comma in, it’s ‘Stop clubbing, baby seals’!” she attempts. “You know, like you’re telling the seals to stop going out to the club and raving.”

Pinstripe chuckles. “So long as y’ain’t tellin’ me to stop clubbin’ ‘em, we’re good.”

“You wh – of COURSE you do.” She folds her arms and rolls her eyes. “You’re horrible.”

“You knew that, Tawny.”

“Yes I did. But seriously! Baby seals? Little babies? Fluffy-wuffy balls of adorableness?”

“Make great slippers.”

She shoves him, and he just turns up his nose.

There’s a precarious path ahead. A canyon, with raised stone pillars as stepping stones across, but they look very slippery. Tawna readies her grappling hook in anticipation of the peril. “Watch your step.”

“You serious, Tawny?” Pinstripe leaps onto the first snow-covered stepping stone, bowing playfully. There has to be a hundred-foot drop yawning to all sides of him. “I GOTS this.”

“Hey, I’m not joking around!” She points the grappling gun emphatically. “You fall and that’s the end of our revenge plan!”

He hops over to the next stone platform. “Geez, Tawny, y’ain’t my ma.”

“I MEAN IT!”

“Quit bein’ such a scaredy-bandicoot – “

And his foot slips on the ice.

Down he goes, plummeting to his presumed doom. And with only one word that echoes up the canyon:

“TAWNAAAAAAAA!”

Without thinking, she yells “STRIPES!”, and she hops as close as she can get to where he fell, desperately scanning the canyon below for a miracle.

He’s clinging onto a thin ledge some ways down, both hands struggling to keep hold as his shiny-shoed feet kick against the frosty stone. “T-Tawna!” he calls up. “Get me outta here!”

“I’m coming!” Tawna says without hesitation. Time to put her new weapon to work as more than a weapon.

It’s affixed to the rocky platform, and Tawna rappels down the length of the entire cord, feet planted against the stone. She’s almost as low as where Pinstripe is hanging, but not quite there. She hangs off the gun, reaching out with one hand.

It’s not quite enough to get to him.

“Stripes!” Tawna pants. “This is as far as I can reach! You’re gonna have to jump for it!”

He furrows his brow. Because even in mortal peril, this is his chance to show off. He leverages his weight, pushes off from the wall, flails up an arm and catches Tawna’s hand.

But the minute both of them have their weight pulling on the grappling hook, it becomes dislodged and sends both of them the rest of the way down.

It would have been a snowy grave for Tawna Bandicoot and Pinstripe Potoroo, except for the merger of what is happening and what will happen. Because what is happening is that they are falling, but what will happen in a far-flung future is that a narcissist will recruit an alternate-dimension version of himself in a bid to conquer all dimensions, and this will result in rifts in time and space.

And because he (and she) will open those rifts, one of those rifts does appear, right below Tawna and Pinstripe, and in they fall. They don’t land on rock-hard ice. They instead bounce off the awning of what looks to be a stall in an Arabian open-air market, which is a much softer landing.

They slide into the sandy street, landing on hands and knees; Tawna releases her hold on the grappling gun and it contracts into its dormant state. And with that discarded, Tawna throws her arms around Pinstripe, bringing him close as she can get him.

“What’re ya doin’?” he grunts in surprise. Flustered.

“You’re my friend and you almost died, so I get to hug you,” she asserts. “You don’t get a say in this.”

“Hey!” But he doesn’t mind so much, and after she’s nearly compressed all the air out of his upper body, he very gently, just enough to technically count, puts his own arms around her, and it feels rather nice.

When they finally let go, he prompts, “So. ‘Stripes’?”

Tawna fiddles with her hair. “You call me ‘Tawny’ now, so it’s only fair play.”

“I like it. Suits me. But only my friends get to use it, see?”  
“Oh, I see.”

He stands, glancing around in awe. “Where the heck are we?”

“Beats me. Maybe we’re dead.”

“Nah, we’s not dead. If this were the afterlife, there’d be more gamblin’.”

It takes them some searching around the city to discover that they are very far from home, not only in terms of the where but also the when. This brings them a revelation.

“Sooooo…” Pinstripe cackles. “We’s can mess around with things that don’t even exist no more! Maybe we can even find a way to get back to the big city during the gangster heyday…”

“What until then?” Tawna asks.

“We could break into the tobacco-smuggling business,” Pinstripe muses. “Judgin’ by the time and place.”

“That…oddly sounds more fun than it should.”

* * *

After Pinstripe and Tawna make a mint in coins they can’t even use in their home time, there’s another rift. Looks to be ‘50’s America, this time. There’s a slew of shiny motorcycles parked outside a “Dingo’s Diner,” which is a name Pinstripe feels like he should remember for some reason.

“Tawny,” he says with a grin. “You ever rode a motorcycle?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure Cortex built enough extra agility into my DNA that I can pick it up pretty quick. You?”  
“I can ride one.” Pinstripe’s grin grows more lopsided. “I can also hotwire one.”

“Winner gets the five hundred?”

Two bikers rush from the diner to see their precious vehicles being ridden into the sunset by a pair of whooping miscreants.

But before they can hit the sunset, they hit another rift, and next thing they knew, they are riding their bizarre metal horses through a landscape of hovels and battlements, to the surprise of a great many sorcerers and goblins.

This is currently the subject of a tapestry that baffles historians.

* * *

“All right, Tawny,” Pinstripe wheedles as they stroll through the castle courtyard. “I taught you how to shoot. Now you owe me somethin’!”

“Choose your next words veeeeery carefully,” Tawna warns, “or I’ll remind you just how much you taught me.”

“No, no, not like that!” He shakes his head. Flushing a bit. Okay, now he’s thinking about if it was like that, and that’s not a bad thought, but this isn’t the time and it isn’t the place and he’s not sure why it feels so different from when he was considering her earlier. “You made that tapestry thing back in Cortex’s digs.”

“What else was I supposed to do when I was cooped up with nothing but yarn and knitting supplies?”

“And ya noticed when I was doodlin’…”

“Where’s this going, Stripes?”

His voice drops to a low mutter. “I want you to teach me how to make my drawings look good.”

“I – you – WHA?” She wasn’t expecting that.

“Don’t overthink it,” he warns. “It’s just you wanna get a decent portrait done these days, you’s gotta paint it yourself.”

Well, that’s a lie, because he has about fifty-seven enormous portraits of himself that he really likes and he made none of them.

“Okay,” Tawna agrees. “I mean, it looks like our revenge plan’s on hold until we figure out what’s up with this time-hopping, and we apparently literally have a few centuries to kill.”

She’s able to scrounge up art supplies; he waives the fee by introducing the vendor to the concept of guns. There’s another rift, and the secluded interior of the Egyptian pyramid is the perfect place for them to sit down on the floor and begin lessons.

Soon, he’s able to draw a small depiction of himself, and one of Tawna for fun, and he’s proud of it.

“I think you’re gonna be a good artist,” Tawna says with a smile. “This is already REALLY good progress.”

“Tawny, I KNOW I’m gonna be a good artist.” He’s swelling with pride again, slicking back his hair, and now he asks, “What about doin’ poses and stuff? Say I wanted to draw me pumpin’ Cortex fulla lead.”

She rolls her eyes but she’s also laughing. “Some things just never change, do they?” And then walks him through how to draw exactly that.

* * *

They’re not sure this next area is even on Earth. It looks to be geographically similar to East Asia, but very, very different. And there are many, many dragons, stony scales outlined in glimmering green magic that illuminate them against the soft dusk.

“They’re so kawaii!” Tawna squeals.

“Kawaii?” Pinstripe repeats. “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“It means ‘cute’!” Tawna explains. “But in Japanese.”

He wants to tell her that if she wants to say “cute,” she should just say “cute,” but he doesn’t, mostly because her saying “kawaii” is strangely kawaii.

They walk among stone terraces and lush greenery when Tawna says, “He became impossible to talk to.”

“Who, your ex-man? Wasn’t he always?”

“I mean, yes and no.” She sighs. “I was always drawn to Crash because he was so free-spirited and lighthearted. He made me happy, even before we became…this. But after Cortex and everything…he was still the same he’d always been. Just with new abilities. He couldn’t take anything seriously, and…I just needed to be taken seriously.”

“Sounds like a rough deal.”

“He tried, but…he just couldn’t understand. He was able to escape so soon, and I had to stay behind…waiting for him to show up…he has no idea what that did to me. Knowing he was out there. Even knowing he was trying to make his way back to me, it…it didn’t help. Then we learned about his sister, and he just…lets her escape on her own, too? I’d thought back then, it was my conscience telling me it wasn’t right. But I see what it is, now. He believed in her.” She hugs herself. “And I don’t know what hurts worse. That he’ll use confidence in somebody as an excuse not to look after his own, or that he didn’t have that confidence in ME.”

“Geez.”

“So we’re on hiatus. Indefinitely. I’m not sure we can ever patch back up, to be honest.”

“So that’s why you stopped wearin’ him on your T-shirt,” Pinstripe realizes.

(In the office, Pinstripe held his gun’s barrel beneath the bound Tawna’s chin, the first time they met. “At least I ain’t pathetic enough to wear somebody’s face on my shirt like I ain’t in charge of my own life.”

He figured out later she was biting her lip about the Cortex portrait that whole time.)

“I could kill him for ya,” Pinstripe suggests mischievously.

“Noooo!” Tawna groans. “I mean – look, I’m mad, but I don’t think he’s a bad PERSON. If there’s another world out there where he and I can be happy together, I guess I’d want that for his sake. But I’m done letting him run me. This is my life, dang it!” She sighs. “And that’s the other thing. He’s really, REALLY not a bad person. He…he’d be willing to forgive Cortex if Cortex apologized, and that’s when we just BROKE, because I can’t, not ever. But you wanna know what’s funny? You are DEFINITELY a bad person, and that just feels BETTER to me. Maybe it means I was always a bad person, too.”

“You ain’t a bad person.”

“I think heavy weaponry is cool.”

“An’ that’s morally bereft?”

“I like exploding people’s heads with my grappling gun.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“You know, maybe you’re not the best person to measure this by,” Tawna realizes. “But you remember how I thought trying to be good was just…holding me back? Now I don’t have to be good anymore. I’m out here trying to kill Cortex for good! With you! And it feels GREAT!” She beams at him. “I guess this was just a really long way to say ‘thank you.’”

And Pinstripe is, strangely, struck speechless. He smooths his hair again, searching for the most debonair words.

What he comes up with is “Yeah, it’s been a blast. Y’know what? For you, I won’t shoot any of the dragons. Keep the kawaii.”

“Awww, Stripes! You’re a great friend.”

“Yeah, yeah, you too.”

* * *

The city in Mosquito Marsh is gorgeous. There’s a festival going on, with balloons and floats and lights and fireworks. It’s also a little bit in the future of where Pinstripe and Tawna came from.

Pinstripe completely doesn’t realize that he’s walked past a Wanted poster for himself.

“Now, this place looks like it could turn a profit,” he remarks. “Remind me to come back here after all this is over.”

“Me too!” Tawna gasps. “It’s so beautiful!” She stops in her tracks, looking down a back alley. “Though, uh…we should probably watch out. Looks like some tough customers run this territory.”

Pinstripe peers down the alley. There are cops. Lots of them. Making chalk outlines of where several bodies had been sprawled.

“Heh,” he remarks. “Challenge accepted.”

And they proceed to the next rift.

But the people who committed the murder spree are nearby. It’s a good thing they never crossed paths, because up on the rooftop, the two who stand there are Pinstripe Potoroo and Tawna Bandicoot, but the versions of them that are just a little bit in the future. They will return, just as they promised, and by then, their relationship will be changed.

“It’s still so beautiful,” the Tawna of that time will say, looking out over the festivities. Her face will screw up; “Wait. Is this the night we…?”

“Eh, best not to think about that.” Pinstripe will casually wave that away. “Save the headache.” He will clear his throat nervously. “So, uh, Tawny. I asked ya here for…somethin’ more than just turnin’ a profit.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you’n’me, we’s been together-together for a while, an’…it’s just…” Oh, why won’t he be able to find the words? “I get a little scared they’ll try an’ make us squeal on each other one day if we get busted, see?”

“Oh, right!” The realization will wash over her in horror. “That’s…wow. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“But there’s, uh…there’s one way to make sure they can’t make us do that, see. An’ that’s all this is. I know we ain’t ready yet to take the big step, but legally speakin’, all it’s gotta be is a label. The one way they can’t make us say a word.”

“Stripes?” Tawna will realize. “Are you…suggesting we get married so we legally can’t testify against each other in court?”

“Yeah. That exactly.” He won’t be able to comprehend why he’s so nervous.

“Hey, it’s only a legal term.” Tawna will shrug. “Might as well!”

“Yeah, well…still thought you might want all the trappin’s. Make it special.”

“Striiiiipes. What did you plan?”

“Well, this, first off.” He’ll gesture out to the parade. “An’ then, well, this.”

He’ll bend at the knee, lowering himself as he produces a ring box from his pocket. He’ll open the box to reveal the biggest diamond that can realistically fit on a ring.

Tawna’s heart will flutter and she will gasp and she will scream and she will cry out “YES!” before Pinstripe can even ask the question. She’ll swipe the ring and jam it into her finger, and Pinstripe will stand back up and envelop her in a one-armed embrace with a deep kiss on top. His other arm, of course, will be used to fire a round of bullets into the night sky as a celebratory gesture, and it will just be so him that he’ll be able to feel Tawna laughing against him as she pulls him closer.

* * *

“Any idea what this is?” Pinstripe – the one from now, not the one from the future – says as he looks up to the strange shining structure in the sky.

“Don’t know, don’t care, probably deadly,” Tawna says as she ushers him forward.

He considers firing at it, but she senses it and pulls him along by the lapel before he can incite any angry aliens to descend upon them and destroy them.

Except that’s not what it will be, at all. It’s another monument of the future, a racetrack in the sky, held aloft by blimps and decorated with the insignia of cards and dice and gamblers’ signs.

It’ll be the brainchild of the Pinstripe of the future, who will be racing Tawna on that very track. The Tawna of the future will have called it overblown, but they’ll both know she loves when he goes over the top.

They’ll never be on the same team. It will be too much fun to compete, to pump up each other’s adrenaline that way. To stop betting in money and instead in the position each will take in the bed that night.

That day, Tawna will drift across the finish line first, getting up out of her kart and waving proudly to those who cheer. Pinstripe will pull in a second later, sputtering minced oaths as Tawna blows kisses to the audience. They’ll like it better when she wins, anyway, because she won’t celebrate by shooting several very deadly bullets into the air.

Those other bandicoot women that Cortex engineered, they’ll crowd around Tawna, her new friends who will cheer for her victory. Pinstripe will get Komodo Joe as his fan club, because Joe will never forget the “debt” he owes.

But Tawna will notice that one of her friends has a dulled shine. “Megumi?” she will ask. “What’s wrong?”

And Megumi will lean in and whisper, “That creep over there…he ogled me and he said…”

Tawna will hear exactly what that creep said, and her eyes will widen. Then she’ll take five long strides over to the man, draw her grappling gun, and shoot once.

His head will shatter.

She’ll blow off the hook – a habit she’ll definitely have picked up from an obvious place. Team Nitro will shudder, because as much as Tawna will be a den mother, she will be a frightening den mother for this very reason. They’ll love her all the same.

And Pinstripe will admire her from afar, smiling dreamily as he says, “That’s my woman.”

“We know,” Joe will huff. “You have reminded ussssss at EVERY opportunity.”

* * *

“Okay, now THIS place is SO! AWESOME!”

Tawna – the one of the present – looks out at the Hazardous Wastes of the future, eyes glittering. Pinstripe realizes she was never kidding about loving the aesthetic of saw blades and cannons.

“Geez, when are we gonna catch the rift back home already?” Pinstripe groans, because there’s a Dr. Neo Cortex he still has to kill and hasn’t yet managed to.

“Aww, Stripes, this place is fun! And it looks right up your aaaaal-leeeeey!” Tawna leans into him playfully.

“Eh,” he coughs. “Can’t argue with that.”

But there’s eventually a desert gang, and they don’t notice the fleet of trucks bearing down on them at full speed until the drivers of the cars are all expertly sniped through their windows, stopping the entire convoy dead.

“WHAT the – “ Pinstripe cries, realizing he was almost roadkill.

“Who…helped us?” Tawna wonders.

“That would be me!” Cresting the roof of the foremost truck is someone they’ve never seen before. A marsupial of some sort, anthropomorphic like them, dressed in a pink-and-blue striped suit with a fedora on top. “The one! The only! Blastoff – “

This person from the future, this “Blastoff,” will notice Tawna and Pinstripe and cut themself off quickly. “WHAT? NNNNNOOOOO!”

Pinstripe readies his gun, because that sounds like fighting words.

“Whoa, WHOA!” Blastoff will hurriedly shake their hands. “I’m not your enemy! It’s just – if you’re who I think you are, and I KNOW you’re who I think you are, then I technically shouldn’t even be allowed to talk to you or else we might cause a rift in the time-space continuum!”

It’s then that Tawna and Pinstripe realize this person might mean something to them.

“You NEVER MET ME!” They will gesture with their own very large machine gun. “Now get outta here!”

Pinstripe points to them. “This ain’t over,” they accuse as he and Tawna take the moment to escape.

Blastoff Bandiroo will sins to a sitting position atop the truck, thinking about how close of a call it was that they almost told their actual parents things that would ruin time itself – such as the fact that they will be the child of the wayward pair.

* * *

Neon City seems to be built for the purpose of food and only food. Pinstripe still can’t work out why “Dingo’s Diner” rings a bell for him, but he suggests he and Tawna head that way anyway.

They order coffee, because they deserve it after all of this sidetracking, and Pinstripe spikes his with a couple of dollops from a brandy flask he keeps on his person. Before he can put the flask away, Tawna makes a grabbing motion.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yep,” she replies, so he passes it to her. She spikes her own coffee, hands the flask back, and takes a drink of the caffeinated alcohol. “Woo! That’s got a kick.”

“Didn’t know you drank,” Pinstripe says, smiling and starting to realize why she makes him smile so much.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Tawna replies. “I would kill for a mojito right now.”

“Well, ain’t no shortage of bars in this place.”

But the teal-skinned woman will notice them then, and stride toward them with murder in her eyes. “You!” she’ll seethe. “It was YOUR counterpart that ruined my partnership with MY counterpart!”

And the next thing they know, the female N. Tropy will pull them into another dimension, one of empty spaces and metal platforms floating in the nothingness.

“What GIVES?” Pinstripe asks, cocking his rifle at her.

For this is the meeting of what N. Tropy will do in the future and what Pinstripe and Tawna are doing now, and time travel is a horribly confusing business.

“I’d dismissed you for a fool long enough,” N. Tropy will growl. “Thought it was good enough to rid the world of your little friends and watch you suffer.”

Tawna realizes she’s being addressed and brings out her grappling hook.

“But you ruined me!” N. Tropy will cry. “And you ruined the OTHER me, the one who was perfect in every way but only slightly less so than I am! And here you are, running around dimensions and time willy-nilly like you own the place when I’m attempting total domination! I won’t let it happen again, and this time, I WON’T waste time on your friend!”

Out will come a great forked weapon that will crackle with electricity. N. Tropy will rush Tawna, who will barely have time to react.

Tawna goes flying. She crashes down onto another metal floor, completely splayed, unmoving.

When she doesn’t even so much as twitch, Pinstripe is filled with the most horror, the most revulsion he’s ever known in his life. Compared to this, Cortex is nothing.

As though he’s never shot a rifle before, he frantically empties the whole of his ammunition into N. Tropy. Then changes out the cartridge and keeps shooting. Then changes out the cartridge. And keeps shooting. And –

“Stripes! Hey, STRIPES! She was dead two cartridges ago at least!”

He freezes at the sound of Tawna’s voice. Stops shooting the corpse of N. Tropy, who he will eventually figure out the significance of. He hops the metal platforms until he’s kneeling beside her.

“Tawny…you okay?”

“Think my leg’s broken,” she coughs, “but otherwise, I – “

The final rift comes. With one of the N. Tropys gone, the work they were both doing grinds to a sudden halt, and without warning, Tawna and Pinstripe are back in the Warp Room at Cortex Castle. Surrounded by Nitro Crates.

“Aw, yeeaaahhh!” Pinstripe pumps his fist. Lets off a victory blast from his rifle. “Now we can wrap this up! …Tawny?”

“Yeah, it’s definitely broken.” He’s impressed that she’s not screaming or crying about it. And a little concerned. “You’re going the last stretch alone, Stripes.”

“But – “ He stammers, he sputters. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“HEY.” Tawna glares him down. “You screw this up, and I will NEVER forgive you. Got it?”

He gets it. “Geeeeeez, I get the picture. You got it. One dead Cortex, comin’ up.”

She pulls herself into a sitting position. “Go get him.”

Pinstripe loads all the Nitro Crates up into a cart, which he pulls into one of the archway portals. Tawna begins to consider how she’s going to get anywhere more comfortable, when out of another portal comes padding a fluffy white polar bear cub.

“Hel-looooo…”

Soon, she’s settled on Polar’s back, and though Polar has no idea what’s even going on, he is careful to bring her down from the castle gently.

* * *

Pinstripe has already made several near misses, ducking around a corner every time he hears Cortex or that idiot N. Gin coming down the hall. What saves him is that neither of them is very quiet about it, and there’s often a monologue or an evil laugh to warn him. He slinks through the shadows, planting a crate here, a crate there.

He checks the time. Brio will be firing his laser off soon. Maybe too soon. It’s entirely possible Pinstripe won’t have all the crates placed unless he can work double time.

He slides through a doorway. Presses against the wall. And hears a familiar hiss from beside him: “Why did you wait so long to tell me about this?”  
He’s startled, and he flinches when he sees who it is. Because it’s Tawna and it can’t possibly be Tawna. Tawna’s leg is broken, and she would’ve had no time to style her hair into a blue-streaked mohawk or change clothes entirely.

“Tawny…?”

“No,” that Tawna will say. “I mean yes. But I’m not YOUR Tawny. Just – ugh, I can’t believe this. I’m from the future AND another dimension. That make sense? After all you and I apparently went through together, I sure hope it does.”

“…Yeah, no, it don’t make sense one bit.”

“Look.” Tawna will run a hand over her forehead in a pinching motion. “I don’t know if this is how it always was or if you messed up when you let your me’s leg get broken, but I JUST found out, SEVERAL years from now, FROM YOU, that both you and me need to be here to blow up this ship. And first of all, I know there’s no accounting for taste, but I should know what I like and I can’t BELIEVE - !”

“Oh, what?” Pinstripe scoffs. “Not good enough for ya?”

“That’s…not it.” Tawna will sigh. “It’s a long story.”

“You and me ain’t friends in the future, I take it.”

“Nonononono,” Tawna will say hurriedly. “I’m the Tawna that ends up realizing she NEEDS Crash and Coco. YOUR Tawna…well…she kinda…doesn’t want that ever again. So I kind of take over that market, and she…uh…does something I can’t tell you about without risking that it won’t happen, and who KNOWS what’ll happen instead? Look, let’s just – let’s get those crates planted and get OUT of here before Brio blows you up! Because if he does, I’ll never let me live it down!”

Pinstripe was as lost as ever, but “get out of here or get blown up” was straightforward enough, so he agreed to work in tandem with this Tawna, not his Tawna, to place the rest of the crates.

They move in synergy. She will alert him to Cortex. He pulls her into a closet to avoid being spotted by Gin. She will roundhouse-kick a crate into a high vent and he stuffs one into the onboard refrigerator.

“Okay,” Tawna will sigh. “That’s all of them.”

“Now you owe me an explanation,” Pinstripe hisses. “What happens to MY Tawny? You replace her?”

“No.”

“Somethin’ happen? Does she get hurt? Does she get offed? ‘Cause if that’s what happens, then I gotta go pump lead into whoever’s gonna do it before they can do it, time integrity or no time integrity!”

“I don’t DIE!” Tawna will groan. “Though if you’re gonna freak out over me THAT MUCH, I guess I finally SORT OF see what I see in you. Not me. The other me. Your me.”

“Wait.” Did that mean…?

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard, okay?” Tawna will sigh. “I always thought of myself as a good person. Apparently, in THIS dimension, I am NOT.”

“So what HAPPENS?”

“I go rogue,” Tawna will grumble. “I embrace the villain life.”

“Heh…you’s already got a great start,” Pinstripe says, flustered. “Tell ya the truth…you’s got me all won over. The other you.” He can finally admit it now. “Startin’ to think, well, you’re outta my league. You gonna go on to usurp my whole empire?”

Tawna will clench her teeth and her fists in almost comical frustration. “I’m WITH YOU, dang it! Your me is, I mean! I – she – your Tawna likes you back that way RIGHT NOW! And I’m pretty sure you stalling me here until you DIE is worse for the timestream than you knowing that!”

Pinstripe absolutely lights up. “Tawny…she’s taken…with me?”

“Tick-tock, here comes the laser – “

“Right!”

They scoot through the warp gate that Cortex has fixed to his station. Safe, for now. Here’s where Tawna will turn away and say, “I don’t get it. But I don’t have to get it. That me’s not me-me, so why even worry? If that me wants to run off and become a mob wife…well…” She will end up laughing lightly. “That just goes to show you how weird these alternate dimensions are, right?”

“Hey, can’t say I get your taste either. Apparently you went for the breakdancin’ moron.”

That will get Tawna to laugh. “Guess we’re even, then. Maybe I’ll see ya ‘round, Stripes. Or maybe that’s other-me’s job.”

“Now, wait a second!” Pinstripe yells in a bit of a panic. “I gotta find her after this. You’re her, so where would you go?”

“Hmm.” Tawna will think it over. “Well, I like cool weapons, dragons, and beach days, so go on that.”

“Huh. I knew two of those things.”

“Yeah, even the good me still thinks chainsaws are pretty cool – “

“No, I meant I didn’t know she liked the beach,” Pinstripe admits.

Tawna will gape before saying, “You know what? I ship it after all. But only this AU version.”

She will take off, then, leaving Pinstripe to go find his Tawna as his heart leaps.

* * *

Polar drops Tawna off on the largest beach of the island, where she reclines back, looking up at the starry night sky. Polar eventually leaves. Then, the sound of hard shoes stepping toward her in the sand alerts her; she sits up as best she can with her leg in shooting pain.

“Hey.” It’s Pinstripe, and he has drinks in hand. Mojitos. He passes one to Tawna. “For dullin’ that pain.”

“I mean, if this is the price for a mojito.” She starts to down it.

“Called for an extraction, too,” Pinstripe admits. “Eddy Emu’s gonna come pick us up. Drop you off where you can get that leg fixed.”

“Guessing you won’t be visiting, since you’re public enemy number one.”

“Tawny, Tawny. You doubt my ways?”

They look up, together, into the night. “It’s beautiful,” Tawna sighs.

“Yeah,” Pinstripe says. “It is.”

A neon beam shoots out from another part of the islands, colliding with the one blinking light in the sky that marked the Cortex Vortex. The explosion is fantastic. Two mojito glasses clink in victory.

They’ll find out, one day, that Cortex survived, but they can get angry about that later. Tonight, they can believe they won.

“Hey, Tawny,” Pinstripe says suddenly.

“Yeah?” She turns to face him.

And he kisses her.

Maybe time is literally frozen. Maybe only metaphorically.

They break apart, and he says, “Too forward?”

“No,” Tawna replies, grinning giddily.

The future looks…well, dark. But for a couple of bad people, that’s a good thing.


End file.
